


Fine Feathers Make Fine Birds

by Metallic_Sweet



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canon-Typical Violence, Cosmetics, Flowers, Languages and Linguistics, Mental Health Issues, Non-Linear Narrative, Other, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 03:04:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3274316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metallic_Sweet/pseuds/Metallic_Sweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tsukiyama Shuu is a very beautiful woman.</p>
<p>She knows this well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fine Feathers Make Fine Birds

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Fine Feathers Make Fine Birds/Одежда Красит Человека](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8110975) by [Feloriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feloriel/pseuds/Feloriel)



She pushes open the window. She smiles.

"Sorry to barge in so suddenly."

 

When Tsukiyama was six, Grandmother passed away.

Back then, she was Shuu. Not Tsukiyama because that was Father, and not the Gourmet because that was what the CCG named her. She was Shuu, short and small for her age with odd coloured hair and inauspicious eyes. She'd been terribly shy, clinging to blankets and drapes and Grandmother's skirts. Grandmother let her, pale, wrinkled hand ruffling her hair.

It was Grandmother who indulged her love for patterns, for language. Languages are patterns, and they're easy to learn but an art to master. They were her first love, and she spent hours mimicking the way Grandmother formed words with her lips, throat, and tongue. Her fingers only left the fabric that always occupied her hands in those days to touch Grandmother's throat, to get the mimicry right.

" _La belle plume fait le bel oiseau_ ," Grandmother once said.

" _La belle plume fait le bel oiseau_ ," Shuu thought she repeated.

"No," Grandmother admonished, gently but firmly; she took her forefinger and placed it against her tongue so she could feel how she needed to form the words. " _La belle plume fait le bel oiseau._ "

Shuu remembers those lessons very clearly. Not just because it was Grandmother that taught her them but because it's the only time she's ever touched or been touched in such a way. No hunger, no fear, no desire existed in that moment. Touch was a simple, trusted gesture, an act of teaching and guidance. 

When Grandmother passed away, Shuu found the body. She passed in her sleep, quiet and peaceful. Shuu remembers the inevitable stench of a dead body, though, and she had known, in the manner that some people just do, even before she touched the wrinkled cheek and found the body gone cold. She stayed there for a long time, even though she'd known that she should go inform a servant or even chance in on her parents. Years later, when Shuu is Tsukiyama and the Gourmet, she comes to understand why.

There is an emptiness, deep and abiding, that opened up that day.

 

"Tsukiyama-san."

She glances away from her hand mirror, lips parted and half-pencilled. A pale pink base for a mauve paint today, to highlight her hair and take the harshness from her eyes. Her kit lies before her on the coffee table: primer, foundation, mascara, fan brush. She spins the lip pencil and smiles.

"Kaneki-kun," she says, soft and warm and with just that hint of huskiness. "You kept me waiting."

He frowns. That means he's in a good mood. Tsukiyama is free to continue her routine. She finishes the outline, twists the pencil to fill in the bow and lower lip. She presses them together, soft pop-pop to evenly distribute the colour. A shadow passes over the kit as Kaneki sits down across. Tsukiyama picks up the lip paint and brush.

"Doesn't," and it makes Tsukiyama look up, fingers only halfway done twisting open the pot, "it taste horrible, having that on your lips?"

Kaneki's gaze is steady but not intense. Curious. It makes a stuttering in her chest. She smiles, finishes uncapping the top.

"Now," she says, light strokes over the paint to coat the brush in careful layers of mauve, "do you think so little of me? I make these myself."

That doesn't mean it doesn't taste awful if she swallows it. It's mixed from pigment and oil, and those are not pleasant things on her gourmet tongue. But there isn't any better way to get such rich, true colours, and Tsukiyama is a gourmet but also a woman. A woman of their sort must be practical.

Despite what many would think, Tsukiyama is extremely practical.

She places the first stroke of paint on the right curve of her lip's bow. She can feel Kaneki's eyes track the stroke, the precise, practised path. This is not the first time that Kaneki has watched her put on a face. It will not be the last. She can sense the hunger that never used to be Kaneki in these moments, can smell the subtle shifts in his scent, the coiling feminine of Rize twining with a masculine musk. He is attracted, just as he smelt the first time when his hair was still black and eyes so very wide, and here Tsukiyama knows she still has power.

"I've always thought," and Tsukiyama will not wince, even though Kaneki is speaking in _that_ voice, "that you are very pretty."

She paints in her upper lip, strokes the brush in the pot to begin the other, smiling. " _Merci beaucoup_ ," she murmurs, making her gaze half-lidded so that the instinctive fear does not show.

Kaneki does not continue, does not respond. Tsukiyama paints in her lower lip, hand mirror propped on the tabletop. She covers the pot, caps the brush. She'll clean it off later. When she looks up, Kaneki is still watching. The eyepatch does not hide the hunger. His scent permeates the air, the couch, the table, the walls. She wants to eat him as much as she ever did. She wants to run away.

"You kept me waiting," she says, settling back, tucking her hands in her lap, the perfect picture of demure purity; it pushes her breasts together and up in her blouse. 

"I tried not to," he says, bland and honest, but she sees how he watches her chest rise and fall.

Tsukiyama smiles.

 

When Tsukiyama was eight and eleven days, Father passed away.

It was then that she became Tsukiyama. Tiny, quiet, inauspicious Shuu died that lovely summer day, standing in her father and his murderer's blood. Shuu died with her kagune and fist in the back of a Dove who had gone rogue. Shuu died as Tsukiyama yanked out the pulsing heart and put it in her mouth.

She remembers, the day after the funeral, that sordid, ugly affair, sitting alone in the high-backed chair in the grand wooden office that was now hers. She was Tsukiyama, even though her kagune was as weak as her tiny body and all she knew in life was how to pick out patterns and memorise languages. She remembers fisting her hands and telling herself not to cry. She did not cry. She could not. After all, she may have been eight and nowhere near fully grown, but she had always been Tsukiyama Shuu. There were things she had been prepared for since birth.

"No one crosses me," she said aloud to the empty room. "No one gets in my way."

And that was what she was and always would be. She could find the right patterns for investments, memorise human routines for hunting. On her ninth birthday, no one dared call her Shuu. 

"Tsukiyama-san."

"Tsukiyama-sama."

It made her smile, that smile that would become her very own.

 

Hamlet said, "That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain—"

The thought draws the soft giggle that Tsukiyama needs. The ghoul next to her on the couch grins wider. His hand rests heavy on her thigh.

"You're so pretty," the ghoul murmurs, and the scent of his arousal is acrid and dank.

"You flatter me, _monsieur_ ," she demurs, brushing a hand over the ends of her short hair, red polish glinting in the moody lighting.

It is a game that she knows how to play to perfection. The Gourmet, the CCG named her and the world now calls her, but she wasn't always that. She is a ghoul, and ghouls must learn to stomach bitter and terrible things if they are to survive.

Kaneki and Banjou smell it on her when she comes by that evening. It makes Banjou scowl in knowing and Kaneki frown, brows drawn and uncomprehending. Kaneki's expression is an adorable mirror of Hinami's puzzled expression. That allows Tsukiyama to smile, stepping from her heels.

"Ah, I've been on my feet all day," she complains, purse swinging on the crook of her arm, flowers beneath the other.

"Your feet," Banjou says.

Despite herself, Tsukiyama feels her smile stretch. She is not hungry, a rarity for her, and there is no mistaking why. Banjou looks at her, distrust, disgust, and disappointment. It's the latter that nearly unlatches her control.

_Calmato_ , she whispers within. _Calmato._

"Of course," she says, and she moves to the tiny, inadequate kitchen, to change her last bouquet in the vase for the new one. "I'm a very busy lady."

 

When Tsukiyama was ten, Mother took her aside.

Mother was a beautiful lady but a very weak ghoul. She was smart and well-versed in flowers and song, the perfect trophy wife. She had been the third daughter of a respected but declining family, and the marriage had been arranged. But Mother knew her lot, knew her limits, and did not complain.

To tell the truth, Tsukiyama did not know Mother very well. Mother had her flowers and wrote her music, and those were the only things that Tsukiyama learned from her when she was still Shuu. Everything else had been Father, who handed down Grandfather's lessons, and Grandmother, who is the only person that ever really knew Shuu. No one knows Shuu anymore. Shuu is dead.

So when Mother came to Tsukiyama's office, that cool autumn day, without an appointment, it had been a bit of a surprise. Usually Mother sent Matsumae, and she always made an appointment. Standing in the doorway, Mother had looked Tsukiyama over, a thoughtful, slow look like how she looked at her flowers or music sheets.

"Yes," she'd said, soft but not at all demure, "it's time."

Mother knew her lot, knew her limits, and did not complain. She told Tsukiyama exactly what she needed to know. There was another hunger, one that was not for food. Tsukiyama would begin to stir that hunger, maybe not that year and maybe not the next, but soon. 

"You will bleed and you will know," Mother said, and Tsukiyama listened, another pattern she needed to memorize. "Your scent will change, and people will look at you differently. There are many looks to learn, and you must learn them all. Do you understand?"

" _Oui_ ," Tsukiyama said, even though she didn't, not then.

Mother smiled, a soft, sad thing. Mother knew what she was, but that didn't mean she was happy with it. Being happy isn't the purpose of life, especially not for a ghoul. She bowed her head to hide her regrets, but Tsukiyama could smell it, the sour and bitter notes overpowering her rosewater perfume.

"Tsukiyama-san."

The emptiness that had made its home so long ago in her soul grows wider.

 

She slams into the basement floor. Her shoulder dislocates with the force. She hears herself yelp, scrambles instinctively away in a huddle.

"Kaneki-kun, you're so rough."

It earns a fist in the stomach. It makes her cough, curl up. The scents in the room are wild, uncontained rage. So that's how it will be. It's not the first time. Tsukiyama curls up tighter, protecting her face.

The thing is, she thinks grimly because it's impossible not to be grim at a moment like this, she is Kaneki's sword. She is the only person that Kaneki can just be Kaneki with now that he's become like this. Banjou is Kaneki's shield, and a shield cannot be too overly battered. A sword can be whetted, smelted into something better, sharper, stronger.

She pledged to be his sword, to gain his trust. When Tsukiyama gives her word, she keeps it. That is how she does business. That is how she conducts herself as head of the Tsukiyama family and the Gourmet. There need to be certainties for there to be patterns. It is the most basic rule.

She wakes in pain. She is on the floor of the basement. She must have passed out.

"Tsukiyama-san?"

She parts her fingers that still cover her face. Kaneki is sitting against the wall in her sight. His eyepatch is off. Both of his eyes are human.

"Kaneki-kun," she says, sitting up carefully, feeling her body and the dislocated arm scream; she does not wince. "Did you hit my head?"

"I -" and the look on his face is so tragic and terrified that all he needs is the black hair to be who he once was. "I don't think so."

Tsukiyama smiles, reaching up to feel the damage to her shoulder. "Then no harm done," she says, testing the beginnings of swelling; it is not too bad. "But here: help me pop this back in."

He obliges. He smells of salty sweat and sweet unhappiness. He would taste like what she imagines descriptions of cured fish taste like. It would make her mouth start watering if it wasn't for the grind-pop of having the shoulder shoved back into place. She breathes out in a loud puff.

" _Merci_."

His face does something complicated, something so very human. He looks so delectable to match his scent. He matches your gaze, blinking rapidly.

"No," he says, firmly.

No one talks to Tsukiyama like that. It's part of what makes Kaneki so enticing, such an esquisite catch. If only Tsukiyama could make herself catch Kaneki Ken.

"Of course not," Tsukiyama says, even as such thoughts chase themselves around her brain. 

 

When Tsukiyama was fifteen, she murdered for the first time.

By then, she was already the Gourmet. She's earned that name when she was thirteen and was perfecting her palate. She was a hunter and a killer, a ghoul of grand repute. But she was not a murderer, not until she was fifteen.

The thing is: languages are patterns. Semantics. Tsukiyama prides herself on knowing such things, her knowledge of nuances and vocabulary. She is a _gourmand_ not just of food but of life, of all that crosses her path and those unfortunates who dare to cross her.

The first person to cross her was the one she murdered. She doesn't even know his name, doesn't care to. It is different from hunting, where there is hunger, and different from killing, where there is desire. Murdering is done in disgust, harsh and acrid, and that's not the sort of meat anyone wants to eat, even the most starving ghoul. It's a loss of control, something done in passion, in desperation.

Tsukiyama was fifteen and nowhere near fully grown. She was no longer the small, shapeless child, but she was not yet a woman although she'd begun to bleed three years before. It had been a dinner party, something that Tsukiyama had always hated, the remnant of Shuu's discomfort with crowds lurking under her skin. The ghoul had been older, stronger, and persistent. And there had been the look, the one that Mother had warned of and Tsukiyama had come to know now that she knew to look.

Matsumae came when called, her dour face faltering. Tsukiyama flicked a lump of gore that had gotten stuck in a link of her bracelet. It helped to calm the ugly beat of adrenaline fuelled by disgust and visceral fear.

"Apologies, but I've made a bit of a mess."

Matsumae bowed, but Tsukiyama knows she saw what really had happened. There was no blood on Tsukiyama's face.

 

Kaneki is gone.

The abyss gapes.

Tsukiyama -

"You'll die like that."

She remembers the feel of Grandmother's tongue. _La belle plume fait le bel oiseau._

"Tsukiyama-san."

She pushes herself into a sitting position. Chie has come. Her camera rest on her lap. She looks puzzled and a little sad.

"Your mascara has run."

Chie helps her clean up. It is imperative that she is clean. She cannot find the presence of mind to redo her face, but she cannot be seen completely undone. She is Tsukiyama after all.

And that's the thing. She shuts herself away in the rooms her father and Grandmother and Grandfather before her birth died in. She cries, like she once forced herself never to do, and she looses her sense of smell and taste. But she is still Tsukiyama, and she cannot just kneel before the altar for the rest of her life.

"Tsukiyama-san," those who she allows in whisper.

Tsukiyama. That is all she has. She is not the Gourmet. The Gourmet, like Shuu, is dead. She is back to patterns, to language, to those cold comfort in the deep abyss. Kanae, Chie, Matsumae, even Mother: they look in on her in terror and worry. But the family accounts are healthy. In fact, they've increased thricefold. They cannot complain truly. Tsukiyama protects them, these people who somehow choose to stay.

Perhaps, she thinks dully, she and Kaneki were not so different. Of course, there were obvious things that made them different, and Kaneki was a fool to the very end. In some ways, though, Tsukiyama was just as foolish. She meant to hunt Kaneki. The ultimate meal. She didn't mean to care, didn't know how to recognise it. How could she? After all, Shuu is long dead.

Kanae bites his lip. "Shuu-sama -"

The office is her sanctuary. It's dark and the heavy wood is a mild, comforting smell. The glow of the computer screen is the only light aside from what sneaks in behind him in the doorway.

"I've brought food."

She doesn't hunt anymore. She isn't hungry, so there isn't a point. Mother has Matsumae, and they both prefer that arrangement. It's only since Kaneki that Tsukiyama came to understand what Mother and Matsumae are to each other. It doesn't rankle as it once might have. Then again, nothing feels like anything these days.

"I'm not hungry."

She knows she should be. Her body is wasted. She knows that even if she wanted to hunt, she wouldn't be able to do it herself, not unless she went for the weakest of the flock. It would hurt her pride if she could hurt or had pride left. 

Kanae's face crumbles, his hands clutching the serving tray. "Please, you must," he says, and he's so blunt for servant; Tsukiyama is not so unaware to understand that's why she keeps him around. "You haven't eaten in over a week."

There is logic there. Tsukiyama appreciates logic. Patterns. No one really understands this because no one remembers Shuu. Kanae doesn't understand why these types of pleas work and not those that are about sentiment and relationships. Tsukiyama is who she is, even though there is a part that is empty and makes her a fool.

"Do you like it?"

It's tongue and thigh. It tastes lean and clean. That is all she can perceive, though. The sword is blunted. Kanae's face falls again at the indifferent shrug. Tsukiyama would have laughed, if she had any will to laugh about anything. She doesn't.

Nothing. She feels nothing.

 

When Tsukiyama was seventeen, she died. Not literally, exactly, but Tsukiyama had already died once before. There are many ways to die.

It was disturbing, of course. Dying isn't a pleasant ordeal, and even Tsukiyama, then the Gourmet and very, very strong, couldn't help but acknowledge the feelings of _anything but this_ and failed to force the calm, lost her self-control. She came back to life screaming, Matsumae and Chie scrambling away in a hurry as Tsukiyama lashed out at the memory of those hands, those slimy, greedy touches.

"Tsukiyama-sama," Matsumae whispered, body plastered to the floor in submission, supplication. "They're dead. Dead. You killed them."

She does not know how. It's one of the only times she has not tried to find out. There were no more dinner parties at the Tsukiyama manor after that. There would not be, not until Tsukiyama passed out of bleeding age. Tsukiyama has no desire to marry, has no desire to play that part of what is supposed to be Tsukiyama. Mother might have known her place, but Tsukiyama is not Mother, not Matsumae, not the Gourmet or Shuu. She is not anyone else but herself. 

No matter what happens, Tsukiyama is Tsukiyama, and there are many ways to die. 

 

She is twenty-four. Her hair has grown past her shoulders for the first time in her life. It's thick and heavy, and Matsumae had to help her braid it because Tsukiyama never learned. Kanae buys her clasps and ribbons and gazes at her with such adoration that it would be sickening, even if she was still the Gourmet.

"You're very pretty, Shuu-sama."

She doesn't bother to correct him. By the time Kanae was born, Shuu was dead. Perhaps his use of that name amuses Tsukiyama a little. That he speaks so adoringly to a ghost: that suits the rose-eyed child.

"Kanae-kun."

He blinks, like coming up from underwater, before hastily withdrawing. Tsukiyama stands. She walks to the balcony, past the gauzy drapes that flutter over open French doors. It is noon, and the sun is high. She looks down at the garden, picks out Matsumae and Mother as they entertain the gathering of upperclass and aristocratic ghouls. Matsumae stops, looks up. Even from here and with dulled senses, Tsukiyama can smell her surprise.

"Tsukiyama-san," the whisper starts below.

She looks down at them. Ghouls, puffed up and stuffed into dresses and suits. Little ants crawling over delicacies that aren't theirs. She may not be the Gourmet anymore, but she is above all these petty pretenders. They gaze up at her, like they would any meal, but when those close enough catch her eyes, they shrink, like the prey they are.

"Tsukiyama-san," Mother calls up, her hair so perfectly arranged, "it is an honour to be graced with your presence."

More murmuring. The crowd is hasty to assent. Tsukiyama doesn't even have to smile now. It is raw, this sort of power, but she feels nothing. She is wearing a suit, heavy black and sharp on her thinned frame, and she knows well how it must juxtaposition her lovingly prepared hair. As she is now, she is not a hunter and would make a very poor killer, but there are other powers she holds.

"Mother," she says, and her voice is low and dark from how little it is used. "Are you enjoying the party?"

Mother bows low. The soft, unblemished skin of her exposed back tantalises a few onlookers. This is Mother's power, which Tsukiyama learned the patterns of well enough to play the game but not master. There are too many variables.

"Yes," she says, clear as a bell, perfect in her humility. "Thank you, Tsukiyama-san."

Tsukiyama turns from the balcony, walks back into her office. Kanae is already returned, carrying a robe that usually wouldn't be aired until winter. It is July. He helps settle it around Tsukiyama's shoulders, tucking it beneath her hair with fingers that only give away minute trembling. His scent wars between adoration and desire.

"The ledgers."

Kanae blusters out a gasping assent. He scrambles away to the shelves, bringing out the property records to set upon the great wooden desk. Tsukiyama smells his mortification, his baseness. Maybe it would taste sour.

It's such a nostalgic thought.

 

This is how it happens:

Tsukiyama wakes. It is dark, and the summer night sweltering. She sits up in bed, peeling away the sheet, unlacing her nightdress. 

_Il fait chaud..._

There is a gasp. Tsukiyama turns towards it, to the window. 

" _Monsieur_ Banjoi," she says, and it's harsh from not speaking for over two days. "You're letting in a chill."

Banjou looks away, towards the flower arrangement that adorns the dresser. Mother used a bird of paradise this week. Tsukiyama shifts, puts her bare feet on the floor. She passes Banjou, shrugging the sweat-soaked nightdress from her shoulders.

"Hey," Banjou says, a weak protest that Tsukiyama ignores.

"Shut the window."

She hears him turn, the shifting of clothing, the latch on the window. It's an old-fashioned thing, unlike the rest of the mansion. Tsukiyama traces the firm, fresh petal of the bird of paradise. This used to be Grandmother's room.

"Put on some clothes."

The sword may be blunt, but the shield has no purpose commanding. Besides, it is too hot, even for Tsukiyama who feels nothing. The body is a betrayer and does not obey. This she learned many years ago.

"Why have you come?"

There's a shift in the sweltering air. A determined scent.

"We've found him."

Tsukiyama feels nothing. Nothing. There is no stabbing sensation. There is no jump in pulse rate. There is nothing. Nothing.

She's shoved the arrangement onto the ground. The vase shatters. Dirt and water splatter her feet. It will stain the carpet.

"Liar."

It escapes her before she can stop it. Where is that prized self-control? It is gone, just like the Gourmet. Dead, just like Shuu. There can be no _calmato_ , no clutching fabric to soothe.

"I'm not," Banjou says, and it's cautious and soft, like she's something that could break. "There is a man in the CCG named Sasaki Haise -"

Her kagune is brittle, but it is still sharp. It stabs into the air where Banjou stood, cuts open his shirt in the barely managed dodge.

"Damn it!"

There's footsteps. Tsukiyama can smell Kanae approaching. She feels something bubbling up, feels it escape through her mouth.

"Listen to me, Tsukiyama -"

"Shuu-sama!"

_La belle plume fait le bel oiseau_

The abyss explodes.

 

Her name is Tsukiyama Shuu. She has a mind for patterns, a love for language. When she was six, her grandmother died. She has run the Tsukiyama family since she was eight years old. Mother smothered what remained of her innocence when she was ten as a kindness. When she was fifteen, she murdered the first of many because that is what it means to survive as a ghoul. She was the Gourmet, a master of smells and tastes, and she was a sword, something more than herself. 

But at the end of it, she is Tsukiyama. 

Just Tsukiyama.

_La belle plume fait le bel oiseau._

 

There is a lady sitting at a table in :re.

She looks like a model. That is Sasaki Haise's first thought. His second thought is that she has the most amazing hair he's ever seen: true purple and extraordinarily long and thick. Her fingers, which hold open a book are painted a bright, startling pink.

But when she looks up -

_You kept me waiting_

She smiles.


End file.
